Breeders gather in Kansas City for Angus Convention

Around 1,000 American Angus Association (AAA) members and other beef industry professionals convened in Kansas City, Mo. from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 for the 2025 Angus Convention. 

The event featured educational tours and presentations, an industry showcase and AAA business and award honors.  

“We’re here today with an Angus breed that can check so many marks off of the job description – calving ease, problem-free cows, maternal strength, growth, efficiency, carcass merit and carcass weight,” said AAA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark McCully during his opening presentation.

He and other presenters spent time discussing Angus advantages in the genetic arena, market landscape and other areas influencing profitability for members and their commercial customers. 

Regional tours 

Educational tours and presentations were a highlight for many attendees of the annual convention.  

The 2025 National Angus Tour, organized by the Kansas Angus Association and sponsored by Vytelle, included stops at Downey Ranch, Shamrock Farms and Fink Beef Genetics. 

Certified Angus Beef’s (CAB) annual Beef Blitz Tour featured regional foodservice distributor Sysco’s Kansas City, Mo. facilities.  

As a third tour option, attendees traveled to St. Joseph, Mo. for an open house at the association’s headquarters. In recent years, the facility has undergone remodels and the addition of an expanded historical display of the Angus breed.  

General sessions 

Four general sessions served as flagships for the convention’s educational lineup. 

The first session, titled “Market Advantage,ˮ featured CattleFax CEO Randy Blach who presented the latest market analytics. He described economic signals of a slow, initial expansion of the national cow herd and some of the short-term impacts he has been seeing due to recent U.S. policy decisions. 

“Policy decisions have a major impact on the market in the short term,” Blach said. “Eventually those things will settle out, and we’ll get back to normal. This is what we’re going through right now.” 

Another general session titled, “Advantage for the Future,” utilized interactive surveys so attendees could help guide the association’s vision of “what winning looks like,” McCully said.

Those in the room provided feedback on a variety of topics from perceptions in consumer demand trends, barriers to cow inventory growth, genetic selection tools and evaluations and more. 

A panel shared insights from the association’s 2025 member survey in combination with audience feedback. 

The “Research Advantage” general session focused on forward-looking work being done by the association’s wholly-owned entity Angus Genetics, Inc. (AGI). 

Attendees heard a summary of AGI’s current and recent research projects, looking at challenging topics like female and bull fertility, bovine congestive heart failure and methane efficiency research. 

During the Genetic Advantage Symposium, sponsored by Neogen, speakers discussed phenotypic data collection and how types of commercial data are needed in larger quantities to better understand complex issues.  

“A change in the beef industry is driven by all of these people right here in this room,” said AGI President Kelli Retallick-Riley. “As we look towards the future, we want to continue to keep association members in this position.” 

Retallick-Riley kicked off the symposium by talking about how the Angus breed has been, and continues to be, successful in collecting and utilizing large amounts of data, such as the 237,000 seedstock genomic profiles tested during Fiscal Year 2025. However, there are still gaps in commercial data that need to be filled. 

Troy Rowan, animal science assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, said, “More phenotypes make more accurate tools, and more accurate phenotypes make more accurate tools.” 

Rowan was invited to present information as the author of the AGI Imagine Forum White Paper, titled “Exploring Next-Generation Phenotyping that Drives Commercial Profitability.” 

Retallick-Riley later facilitated a panel discussion with Rowan; Mike Ellis, animal science professor emeritus with the University of Illinois and James Bradley of Bradley 3 Ranch in Memphis, Texas. 

Some of the key messages from their discussion were that Angus breeders can learn lessons from other species about how to be wise with resources when investigating genetic advancements and how collecting more phenotype data from commercial environments is crucial because context and genotype-by-environment interactions can impact the effectiveness of genetic tools.

Educational breakout sessions

Angus University and Learning Lounge breakout sessions offered attendees even more education. 

Association staff offered several highly practical Angus University sessions on how to make the most of a membership with the organization, tips for submitting data to the association and how members can get the most return out of their data submission efforts. 

Other Angus University topics ranged from balancing carcass and maternal traits to building relationships between seedstock and commercial customers. 

As part of Angus University, Angus Media also hosted sale-day focused sessions. 

“This year’s Angus Media Marketing Summit was designed to help Angus members learn how to plan ahead for sale day and create a customized, integrated marketing plan for their operation,” said Courtney Bartenslager, Angus Media digital marketing manager.

The two sessions included a deep dive into the tools and services offered by Angus Media, along with creative strategies to get the most out of a marketing budget. 

Several of the industry showcase sponsors also offered Learning Lounge sessions on topics from fertility to sale management software. 

Honors and awards 

The largest celebration at Angus Convention was once more the AAA Awards Dinner, held on Nov. 1. 

During the ceremony, the Angus Heritage Foundation inducted David Hawkins of Mason, Mich.; Mike McGuire of Waverly, Ala.; Robert Totusek of Oklahoma City, Okla and Tom and Carolyn Perrier of Eureka, Kan.  

Other winners recognized during the awards dinner and reception were Don Denny of Lubbock, Texas as the Angus Ambassador of the Year; Express Ranches of Yukon, Okla. as the Roll of Victory (ROV) Breeder of the Year; Fitzgerald Saint Elmo 1997, owned by Broderic Fitzgerald of Frankfort, Ind., as the ROV Show Bull of the Year; EXAR Princess 3691, owned by Ella Weldon of Piedmont, Okla., as the ROV Show Heifer of the Year; Conneally Craftsman, bred by Conneally Angus of Whitman, Neb. and owned by Select Sires, Inc. of Plain City, Ohio and STgenetics of Navasota, Texas, as the 2025 Sire of the Year.

The reception concluded with the crowning of 2026 Miss American Angus Claire Murnin of Pompeys Pillar, Mont., who will serve as a spokesperson for the Angus breed at shows and events across the country in the coming year. 

She is the first from Big Sky Country to serve in the role. 

Convention extras 

Throughout the long weekend, CAB brand cuts kept attendees satisfied. At the AAA Awards Dinner, the meal centered around a tender short-rib dish.  

The brand also hosted a Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) training on Oct. 31, which featured education led by Kansas State University Beef Extension Veterinarian Dr. A.J. Tarpoff. 

More than 40 producers earned their BQA certification as part of the brand’s “Raised with Respectˮ campaign, sponsored by Sysco. 

The 2026 Angus Convention will be held Nov. 13-16 in Louisville, Ky., in conjunction with the North American International Livestock Exhibition.

Sarah Kocher is a communications specialist for AAA. This article was originally published by Angus Journal on Nov. 5.